4g mifi connected to router via USB / DirectIP

timmer3

hi,
i have a netgear 4g mifi router (aircard 762S) provided by three, it works grand out of the box and has its own basic wireless router. i want to use more advanced routing features like i get with my linksys E3000 and connect some wired LAN clients. the router has a micro USB port and it provides a DirectIP interface when you connect a device to it, so it's not like a normal 3g modem where you have to dial init strings etc. it shows up as a LAN connection, see attached screenshot of the LAN status of the mifi connected to a windows 7 machine via USB, all set automatically.

the logical thing i tried with the E3000 router is to set the WAN connection to DHCP but it never got a WAN IP address. even though the mifi shows the USB client connected. so i tried static IP WAN Setup follows:

MIFI SETTINGS:
Router IP: 192.168.1.1
USB allocated IP: 192.168.2.2
DHCP on.

LINKSYS E3000 SETTINGS:
Router mode (DD-WRT).
WAN Static IP: 192.168.2.2
WAN Subnet: 255.255.255.0
WAN Gateway: 192.168.1.1
WAN Static DNS: 192.168.1.1

Router IP: 192.168.2.1
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 0.0.0.0
Local DNS: 0.0.0.0

can anyone see anything obviously wrong with these settings? it's a long while since telecoms lectures

ZENER

For a start you have 2 devices with the same IP - The USB port on the Netgear and the WAN port on the Linksys.
The WAN Gateway on the Linksys is not on the same network as the port IP address so will be unreachable.

How are you connecting the WAN port to the Netgear ? I don't see any mention of the USB port on the Linksys being capable of passing network traffic ? It's only function appears to be to connect storage devices to. Maybe the WRT software changes its function ?

Ken

timmer3

hi Ken, thanks a mil for the reply. i'm connecting the netgear to the linksys via USB.

192.168.2.2 is the ip address assigned by the netgear to the USB connected device. so if i plug my laptop in to the netgear by USB, i get a LAN connection on the laptop and 192.168.2.2 is the IP address assigned to it. for that reason i'm assuming the linksys router should function with the same. the screenshot shows the gateway being on a different subnet to the DHCP allocated IP, but it works fine on the laptop. i understand that the 2.* clients can't talk to the 1.* clients, but this is actually fine for me.

you're right that the stock e3000 firmware is only for storage. the WRT software does add new functionality to the USB port, and it identifies the USB devices and it detects and loads the 'sierra.c' modem drivers ok. i have a thread open on DD-WRT but no takers yet, was just hoping someone here might have used this 4g router from three and got it integrated with their existing network. i think the problem is that the DirectIP interface is not well documented with DD-WRT and doesn't seem very common.

ZENER

I actually have the same device and was in a similar situation to you. I needed to be able to connect my devices together via CAT5 for speed of transfer but have them all access the 'net. I'm stuck with mobile broadband for various reasons.

I ended up buying a Netgear Wireless extender which also has 4 Ethernet ports at the rear so that sorted out my needs.

I don't have any experience of the DD-WRT system so I'm afraid I can't help with that but I can confirm that the setting your machine picks up when connected via USB to the Aircard are identical to mine. I can't understand how the gateway can be on a different network and be still reachable though, goes against what I've learned. Maybe the MAC address is added to the ARP table or something allowing the device to be contacted on a broadcast ?

Something interesting I did discover though is that there is a persistent route added. It's a 192.168.137.x address which is an ICS address range. Not sure if this is even relevant here but does seem odd. Or is it something new with Windows 8 perhaps ? What I do know is that I haven't added the address or enables ICS at any point on this laptop.

Good luck with your search.

Ken

timmer3

that's very interesting. i was surprised to see the crossed subnets myself.

i tried the wireless repeater/bridge configuration but couldn't get it working and i expect to get the best performance using the USB (ethernet) interface anyway so i'm going to stick with it and see if it's possible. and then let the E3000 provide the wifi.

if it's of interest to anyone, i'm using a business sim-only plan from 3 @ €20 per month, which has unlimited data, and works with the 4g router (it came with a prepay sim which i'm not using now). i was stuck with eircom DSL because my office can't get fibre - off grafton street! so now i am free from eircom, and have great speeds, 25Mbit up / 15Mbit down (varies at different times).

timmer3

finally got this working. what worked for me was to install the latest OpenWRT huntsman build, which is designed to support hostless / hilink / USB-ethernet modems.

on my linksys E3000 router, the link is:
http://www.ofmodemsandmen.com/test/openwrt-e3000_v1-HM2013-01-31.bin
and the thread it's linked from is here:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2207038

in terms of configuring the router, the mifi uses 192.168.1.1 as its IP, the USB interface uses 192.168.2.2, and i set the E3000 router IP to use 192.168.3.1 as its IP. it picks up the WAN ip automatically, literally plug and play, and once i set it on its own subnet it worked like a charm.
getting great speeds now, much better than using the mifi router to connect.

Johnnyraz

Hi Timmer3

Just wondering if you have the openwrt-e3000_v1-HM2013-01-31.bin file saved anywhere.
It seems to be gone from the of modems and men website.

I'm in the same situation as you and want to connect my aircard to my E3000.

Thanks

timmer3

never thought keeping all that junk in my downloads folder would come in useful...
it's just too big to upload as a zip so i've renamed it ".bin.pdf", just remove the .pdf and it should be fine.

Johnnyraz

timmer3 wrote: »

never thought keeping all that junk in my downloads folder would come in useful...
it's just too big to upload as a zip so i've renamed it ".bin.pdf", just remove the .pdf and it should be fine.

Thanks very much for that Timmer3

Johnnyraz

Thanks again timmer3
Setup working great now.
are you still running same setup yourself ?

Any other problems you ran into to ?

timmer3

in the end i upgraded to the new three 4g router with 4 lan ports built-in, don't have the model name to hand. running an office from the mifi router was a bit optimistic, it's a lightweight device that manages small traffic and a few devices reasonably well. consistently better performance from the new router and not a single connection drop. i used to have to reboot the mifi a few times a day.

niallb

I've done something similar with a Hilink 4G modem (using Meteor 4G €23.95 a month for 30GB).

I plugged it into a USB port on an old asus EEE PC and installed pfsense on it.
It comes up as an ethernet device and works fine.
It's possible to change the mode to a USB modem with an AT command if that suits your software better by the way.
You can also turn off the PITA virtual cdrom that most of these devices have.

I also have an older 3G mifi in the attic which gets an O2 signal.
I make a wireless connection to that from the pfsense box, and have the two internet links available.
I'm running Tesco PAYG on the 3G modem which gives you 15GB for €15, and top up as often as you like.
There's 5 of us in the house, and two of us work from home so we tend to top this up every 7 to 10 days.
A lot cheaper than paying the overlimit fees on a billpay mobile plan.


The 4G slows down a lot around 4PM, presumably with people getting home from school/work so it also allows me switch over to 3G for our work machines during that part of the day.

Out of paranoia on going over the 4G data limit, I make sure all our kids devices only use the 3G link, and the 4G link is prioritised for use when working from home.

I've also enable transparent proxy on the box which really speeds things up for most browsing use and cuts down data requirements.
pfsense generates graphs which allow me track down the heaviest users too.
Allowed me to point out to my son that watching youtube in full HD was not necessary and not practical while we're on "pay per GB" mobile data.
A couple of settings changes to use lower resolutions and not to autoplay facebook videos helps keep things under control too.

There's no DSL available in the area, and the local exchange was never upgraded,
so we'll be working like this for the next 2 years anyway.
Still, I get steady enough 8Mb from the Tesco link, and up to 20Mb from the Meteor 4G. The Meteor link also gives me a public IP (not static) which the Tesco link doesn't, so it's handier for some VPN work.

I'm thinking of adding a satellite link with unlimited nighttime transfers for the heavy lifting later in the year if I can negotiate a 30 day rolling contract.
I'll be able to add this in as another interface on the same EEE PC, and have it available to use in traffic and firewall rules.

I was tempted to set up an old WR1043ND on openwrt, and pleased to hear that recent builds support the modems as ethernet devices, but for me having an old unused laptop with 8GB storage and 1GB RAM was going to give me a more flexible router. Pretty pleased with it so far.

timmer3

if you have a business, Three have all you can eat calls/texts/data on a sim-free plan (BYOD they call it) for €30 per month ex VAT. i got this a few months back when it was only €20. you can put this sim in a 4g router to get unlimited traffic.

niallb

Unfortunately, there's no 3 coverage here at all, or I probably would have used them instead.
I really posted my setup as a follow on from your original post on using the mifi specifically as a directIP device over USB.

Being able to use a few links for whatever reasons is one part of it,
but it also allows me to plug a decent wifi router into the ethernet port on the EEEPC.
I used the old mifi directly for a while, but it couldn't cope with more than half a dozen devices.
I've got an airport express for connecting our actual computers/phones/etc to,
and the only wireless connection to the 3G mifi is from the pfsense box itself.